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241 Comments
- ieee, on 02/09/2009, -2/+113Hmm, interesting deal.
What you get:
- giving up seeing your family and friends regularly
- giving up your home
- taking a massive pay cut
- using your savings or credit to relocate to another country
What IBM gets:
- a highly educated, experienced worker made into a third world citizen now being paid 3rd world wages - melophobia07, on 02/09/2009, -3/+54Well that's just ***** fantastic. why did i go to college again?
- Niubai, on 02/08/2009, -1/+48I don't know about China or India, but in Brazil, a US$80,000 / year salary is WAY, WAY above average. I can say it's almost a millionaire salary.
Minimum wage in Brazil is R$ 465,00 / month (something like US$220.00 / month). The mininum wage in Brazil is so low that's almost a joke. But, if you have a profession, your earnings are a lot higher than that. My salary as a programmer is, more or less, R$ 2.500,00 / month (roughly US$ 1,100 / month). My wife's salary too, same thing. If you compare with US salaries, it's a joke, but for Brazil it's not that bad. We don't have any luxury, but we can have a decent life, with a cool apartment, a car, and stuff like that.
Anything about US$15,000 / year or above, for Brazil, it's pretty good. You can have a simple and nice life around here with such money. - michaelpinto, on 02/08/2009, -4/+46Carpy my bet is that over the last few years IBM has already outsourced any programming work that could be outsourced. But the real question is if IBM is so high tech and into outsourcing why can't the workers telecommute from home to report to their bosses overseas? This comes down to IBM not making their fair contribution to the local tax base — maybe the answer is that companies like IBM should be shut out of the stimulus package contracts which are being paid for by American taxpayers.
- sjbdallas, on 02/09/2009, -7/+44If congress cared about stimulating the economy, they'd get rid of this crap.
- oboshoe, on 02/09/2009, -2/+36Yes. Go there and live on local wages which are poverty wages in the US.
Then spend decades trying to save enough money to get home when you tire of living in a foreign land.
Man. talk about a bad decision with devastating consequences. - LAmandingo, on 02/09/2009, -4/+32Thank, but no thanks. Here is a better trend. Lets start off-shoring executives. Japanese companies rarely pay a CEO over a million a year and unlike American CEOs they run companies that actually make products that American want to buy. Amazing concept huh?
I'm okay with the entire top management being outsourced to just the CEO.
IBM sucks anyways. Over a 25% of their employees are already outsourced to third world countries. Most American consumers dont have any IBM products anyways. - dshreyas, on 02/09/2009, -0/+25In India, junior developers get around $6000/year
Average maybe at about $8000/year
You might go upto $15,000/year
This is of course not too bad considering you can get a pretty good meal for $0.5 - howclever, on 02/09/2009, -0/+21What America gets:
A nation full of the ultra-wealthy and the ultra-poor. - LMN8R, on 02/09/2009, -1/+21When I was an intern for IBM doing software development, I had to deal with stupid ***** outsourced programmers who put ***** UNDERSCORES in the middle of numbers that were meant to be parsed efficiently.
Yes - right in the middle of a document where straight numbers were used all over the place, the dumbass piece of ***** decided to put 1_000_000_000 instead of 1000000000 and other examples like it all over the place. - thebigredcat, on 02/09/2009, -2/+22I had to do a double take to make sure this wasn't The Onion.
- g33kfu, on 02/09/2009, -0/+18I work for one of the 5 major Canadian banks, and IBM is our "work force" vendor. Most of our development (BA, Dev, QA, and PM) are being outsourced to India through IBM. They pay their workers *****. The onshore workers (usually team leads) gets stuffed into crappy apartments in bad neighbourhoods. The talented and well educated ones eventually has enough of this ***** and immigrate (and quit), thus leading to a very high turn over rate. What we're usually left with are the bottom of the barrel resources.
What's worse is that we're now being told that there is no money left for us full-timers (because they burned all their money on outsourcing "planning") that we might be let go later this year. So basically, we spend our time training and managing people that were destined to replace us for a fraction of our pay. How's that for soul sucking? - norman619, on 02/09/2009, -1/+18Thank you for putting this into proper perspective. People here on Digg seem to think the cost of living in these low wage countries is the same as here in the US.
- FaithclubDotNet, on 02/09/2009, -1/+18So they're would be a bigger supply of qualified workers to fight each other for a wage.
I graduated Carnegie Mellon University for programming, and I only had one job involving what I went to school for in the past 7 years. - gobbleplex, on 02/09/2009, -0/+17About the only way to get rid of it is to force other countries to pay comparable wages as the US does. How would that be done, exactly?
- ieee, on 02/09/2009, -0/+16The problem is so far there are educated people in those third world countries willing to work for much less.
Basically, American CEOs are turing the US into a third world country. They move jobs oversees and make a bundle in cost savings as they sell their products at the same price in the US.
After a while, fewer people in the US can afford their products because all the good jobs go oversees.
Then Americans become so poor that they are willing to work for ***** wages. America converted from "rockets red glare" to calcutta. - ieee, on 02/09/2009, -5/+21Dude, have you read the news in the last month?
The CEOs are flying private jets to ask for government handouts ( our money ) and then giving themselves bonuses. Likely before cutting jobs or cutting wages for those beneath them. - mjk340, on 02/09/2009, -0/+16Older workers don't want this because they already own a house and have a family. Younger workers can't do this because they are struggling to pay the $800/month student loan bills on $45k a year in the US. How do you pay $9000 a year toward your student loan when you are bringing in $15,000 a year?
I guess since you aren't in the US anymore you could just blow it off. But since you can't declare bankruptcy against student loans anymore, have fun with your 15% pay garnish for the rest of your life if you ever come back to the States.
- ieee, on 02/09/2009, -1/+17Do their insurance policies mandate massive bonuses and expensive vacations after their policies ran their companies into the ground and asking for taxpayer handouts?
No sympathy for Corporate America here. - jayselle, on 02/09/2009, -2/+17I just don't get why people outsource IT (especially software development). In my experience the work is mediocre and a lot of the folks are incompetent. I think it must look good from a space shuttle view when looking at the numbers in the executive ivory tower.
- salstress, on 02/09/2009, -0/+15yeah, I have managed tons of projects with indian programmers - can't stand the crap they churn out. wtf are people thinking hiring them as if they are a good alternative? the crappy communication is even worse than the coding.
- inactive, on 02/09/2009, -1/+16$10 and a goat
- cubicledrone, on 02/09/2009, -0/+14Fine, then we can stop ***** people with the "oh, work hard and get an education and more skills and you'll do fine" scam.
I'm rather amused by the idea that a house is a luxury that should be beyond the reach of a reasonable standard of living. If we can't even own a home, what's the ***** point of hauling our ass to work every day, hmm? If the best I can do is a trailer I'd say ***** it, and I'd be willing to guess a whole lot of other people would feel the same way.
So how about 35% unemployment? Or 50%? See if society can pay the bills then. - moothemagiccow, on 02/09/2009, -1/+15just deport IBM executives. see how they enjoy a taste of their own medicine. instead of living like kings here, they'll live like gods in india. everyone wins.
- gobbleplex, on 02/09/2009, -1/+14I'm honestly curious where these companies expect they will continue to find workers in 20 years. If the amount of money they wish to pay for people with a high level of skill is best characterized by 'pretty good for a 3rd world nation', then what incentive does anyone have to learn these skills?
I imagine we'll find the answer to this after India has lost its outsourcing crown to the first African country that can demonstrate the stability to keep a shop in operation, and whose developers will work for $1000/year. - Carpy, on 02/08/2009, -2/+15Average salary for a developer at IBM in the US is probably about $80,000 (junior developer at say 60; senior at about $100 or more). What would be that person's wages in India or China?
- tolgafiratoglu, on 02/09/2009, -1/+14I live in Turkey as a software developer
A good house in Istanbul is ~300-400$ or more per month, you can live with 400$ more, so all the remaining you can earn after 700-800$ will be your extra.
The jobs won't be as professional as your companies may offer in terms of technique but believe me here's not a desert, modern cities in Turkey (or others) are as modern as most US cities. Just less rich than NY (is it a bad thing in crisis?) - Bloodwine, on 02/09/2009, -9/+22What else do you expect from a company who provided punchcard computers to the Nazis?
- inactive, on 02/09/2009, -0/+13So you can be in debt for the rest of your life.
- drethedog, on 02/09/2009, -1/+13"Brazil, India, China"... Pick Brazil:
http://www.microkitten.com/images/c3ru/Brazilian-t ... - Tyrghast, on 02/09/2009, -0/+12You can't even pay rent for a family of 4 for 20k a year and still plan on eating and having running water. Not in the USA.
- skinny01, on 02/09/2009, -0/+11But it won't help if you're based in the US and already have credit cards to pay off, mortgages, etc... If you were completely debt free with no attachments like family, etc..., then it could be more of a possibility to accept. But to have your USDollar income drop that dramatically after racking up USDebt, you'll be a slave for life.
- ieee, on 02/09/2009, -1/+12I'm always amazed at the people who post "lets not beat up on the corporate guy" sentiments.
A lot of corporations get out of large amounts of taxes.
So, they only matter as far as providing jobs. If they take those jobs overseas or fail in the US (exhaggerated threats to use as a rationalization/ emotional blackmail )it is the same thing. The jobs, the only thing of value they contribute back to the country is gone either way.
I say ***** em - cubicledrone, on 02/09/2009, -0/+11Folks. Face it. Corporations have no use for American workers any more. If you are stupid enough to work towards a "stable career" in a major corporation, then you'll have to put up with being outsourced every six months.
There are three qualifications for getting hired at an American company now: brown, cheap and elsewhere. - jpek00, on 02/09/2009, -1/+12IBM is an efficiency-obsessed, any means to an end corporation. If you want to risk ruining your life, work for IBM.
- ell0bo, on 02/09/2009, -0/+11Well, Raleigh still has a good deal of programming going on, or it did when I worked there two years ago. I hated when they would outsource work. I was working on a project where parts were outsourced, and it was such a pain getting their crap and having to work it into the system. I know a few times I said screw it and just rewrote it myself.
- incandescent, on 02/09/2009, -1/+12Sorry, but until I can visit India without suffering a serious stomach upset and find Indian partner companies whose power and internet connections don't regularly go down, I will regard that country as third world.
- sgyoung, on 02/09/2009, -1/+11This is from the company with the CEO who had is arm around Obama the other day giving a speech about "creating US jobs and his plan to stimulate the economy" -
- sjbdallas, on 02/09/2009, -1/+11Offer a tax incentive for NOT offshoring maybe? It would certainly do more than spending several million resodding the national mall.
- inactive, on 02/09/2009, -1/+11FYI good numbers of workers in IBM US are from other countries majorly from India.
- inactive, on 02/09/2009, -1/+10how?
- Scaryclouds, on 02/09/2009, -4/+13@norman
Yea but the standard of living is much lower as well. One of the developers at my company worked in India for awhile and he has the theory that nobody in that country has taken a solid *****. - howclever, on 02/09/2009, -2/+11Yeah, there's obviously just too much regulation on these companies. We need to free up the market!
Moron. Wages are at a 100-year LOW in the USA. - BartSwordfish, on 02/09/2009, -0/+9Local news recently did a story on the real value of a college education. Basic conclusion: unless it's s specialty field the degree isn't worth it. Better off learning a trade.
- bitmanx, on 02/09/2009, -1/+10US based companies are getting smarter now by demanding from IBM that employee's either be on-site or US based.. They may be cheaper abroad but that's only until you have an issue and nobody can understand what their saying and nor do they really care about ANY of of quality. There cheap for a reason, LAZY... All they do is get free training and move the next gig for more money. To succeed at IBM you basically have to actually be completely inefficient, look like you doing a ton of work, and kiss the mgr's ass by telling them how great they are and how your so busy.. Any deviation from that trying to make things better will get you the axe. I've seen it there and it's pathetic..
- stockjones, on 02/09/2009, -2/+11Yeah its all about the cost of living where you are at. We have a lot of issues in the US because the cost of living is so high. Workers expect very high salaries relative to many of these other countries and a pretty high standard of living. Many companies like IBM are in a dilemna. Condemned for moving jobs out of the state, but at the same time striving to compete in a very tough market. This is why tax incentives are good for companies but a lot of people these days don't get that. They figure hey lets tax the evil corporations. Well first of all not all these companies are evil just successful and second, you want to tax them to death they may just take up business and leave all together and then what no jobs at all.
Obama wants to give these companies tax incentives to keep more of these jobs in the US. I say go for it, but it clashes with everyones hate and anger in general with this whole financial crisis. - mhearne, on 02/09/2009, -0/+9This is horrible.
What are these people going to do when they finally come home? After working at one-fifth of their U.S. salaries, they won't have enough savings to live here.
I understand company loyalty, but I don't understand the incentive to take a four-fifths pay cut to stay. - pheyze, on 02/09/2009, -1/+10there*
- LAmandingo, on 02/09/2009, -1/+9Hey Genius,
It does not matter if they are a service business or make tangible products. All the executive jobs can easily be outsourced. It doesnt take some overpaid American saying "okay lets cut costs by hiring Indian workers" to be a CEO. An Asian CEO can say and do the exact same thing for about 1/4 the salary and without some golden parachute. - Elranzer, on 02/09/2009, -0/+8Damn. I'd totally move to Canada if it meant I could blow off my student loans.
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